


I Got You

by MaddieandChimney



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: F/M, and miscarriage, mentions of domestic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:41:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24097504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: A continuation of ‘Its Going to be Okay’.Buck leaves and Maddie knows she needs to have the conversation with Chimney about what happened three years before she got to LA.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23
Collections: Madney One-Shots





	I Got You

The moment Buck left, Maddie knew she would have to have a serious discussion with Chimney. A conversation she had been trying to avoid all night, every time her brother had tried to leave she had poured him another glass of wine or changed the topic of conversation so he would stay. Eventually, he had seen through it and called it a night, his lips against his big sisters forehead before he gave her the look. She knew exactly what it meant – he was her brother and sometimes, words didn’t need to be spoken between the two to understand. 

She was supposed to be honest with the man she loved, sometimes it was easier said than done. When Doug was mentioned, even in passing or just insinuated, there was a pained look in Chimney’s eyes. It hurt him to even think of someone hurting her and she loved him even more for it, but it never made bringing up her past with her dead husband any easier. “You’ve been avoiding me.” The man pointed out when the door closed and her brother was gone. 

“That obvious, huh?” Maddie nervously laughed, and bit down on her lip. She hadn’t hidden anything from him on purpose, if she was honest, she hadn’t thought Buck would remember that brief conversation on the phone. At least, not enough to bring it back to the forefront of her own mind. She could remember every second but she tried not to, not when she was as happy as she was. 

Chimney sighed, taking both of her hands in his, pulling them up to his mouth before he pressed gentle kisses against her fingers, “You don’t have to tell me everything, but just tell me what that was about. You don’t have to go into detail and if you don’t want me to, I won’t ask any questions. Just tell me so I don’t worry and let my imagination kick in.” 

Her heart hurt with a sudden surge of overwhelming love for the man in front of her right then. She had often longed to have met him way before she had, but nineteen year old Maddie – even before Doug - wouldn’t have been ready for a man as kind or as loving as her Howie was. Perhaps she had to go through hell and back to fully appreciate him for everything he was because before, she never could have believed someone so pure as the paramedic she had fallen for so quickly could even exist. Let alone love her so unconditionally.

“No, it’s fine. I want to tell you and you can ask as many questions as you want. I just want you to know that everything that had happened in the past led me to you and whilst I hate it and I hate the way it makes me act sometimes, it’s part of me and it happened and I can’t change it. And I don’t want you to focus on how you wish you could have changed it or been there for me… because I can’t regret any of it if it got me here, standing in this apartment with you, pregnant with your child… then I accept it.” There were tears in her eyes as she spoke but she didn’t let them fall, not yet. 

He took a deep breath before he led her to the couch, but he didn’t say anything as he mentally prepared himself for whatever she was about to tell him. He had to remind himself that he couldn’t get angry, he couldn’t hate himself for the things that happened to her before he even knew she existed. He was there to love her completely and utterly for the person she was, and the mother she was going to be and hopefully, his wife. Not Doug’s wife. 

“I’ve been pregnant before, obviously long before I met you. Three years before I got to LA. I had always been so careful. I didn’t want to bring a child into my marriage and Doug, for all his flaws, he didn’t want a child and never forced the subject.” He had wanted her all to himself, and despite the fact she had longed to be a mother, she was glad she didn’t have to bring an innocent third party into their storm of a relationship. 

Howie still didn’t speak and she was glad, his grip tightened on her hands and she felt the way his hands shook ever so slightly. “I phoned Buck, obviously and I told him and… he didn’t react well because why would he? He knew better than to believe any of the lies I told him about Doug, he’s not stupid. I told him that I had just wanted him to tell me it would be okay but he couldn’t. Which is why he said those words to me today, I guess he felt more guilt than I gave him credit for, you know how he is – he probably thought about it for months after, probably blamed himself for why I didn’t then speak to him for the three years that followed.”

She grimaced, remembering how she had deleted his contact from her phone, and then, when he had text her twice and tried to ring her over the week that followed, she had blocked him. And then changed her number when he borrowed someone else’s phone to contact her. It wasn’t her proudest moment, missing out on so much of her brothers life but at the time, she thought she was protecting him. Really, she was protecting herself. “I phoned him a few days later to tell him I had a miscarriage and then I didn’t speak to him again until I turned up here.” 

She rushed out the last few words, feeling the way her cheeks burnt from shame, she had let her brother send her a Christmas card and a birthday card every year for three years and she had only clung onto them without reaching out to even let him know she was okay. Because she wasn’t able to lie to her little brother, it was easier to ignore him, easier to tell herself he was better off without her. “Was it… a miscarriage or…?” Chimney didn’t know how to carefully word what he wanted to say, but he already knew the answer. 

“Doug pushed me down the stairs.” It was a fact, she spoke the words and it felt as though it had happened to someone else. Another Maddie in another world that barely existed anymore, her husband had pushed her down the stairs in the hopes it would kill their baby and he had done so with a smirk on his face. It almost seemed too terrifying to be true, that someone could be so evil. “He caught me on the phone with Buck, he had been so angry….”

She remembered the bruises, waking up the next day in pain, but still managing to get out of bed in a bid to get ready for work. “We had gone to bed as usual, I woke up and I went to go downstairs after getting ready for work. He stopped me at the top of the stairs,” It had become immediately obvious to her that it had been carefully planned, he hadn’t wanted the pregnancy from the moment she had told him, “He told me that it was the best thing for us, that it was just meant to be the two of us and I would thank him later.” 

Maddie held back the tears still but pulled her hands from his when she realised how uncomfortable she felt – aside from therapy, she very rarely went into detail about what had happened with Doug, and no amount of therapy would ever remove the embarrassment she felt when she thought about what she had gone through. What she had let him put her through time and time again, only to let him comfort her moments later. She tried to remind herself that before it ever became physical, he had broken her mentally, until she fully believed she was nothing without him.

“I don’t remember falling, I just remember waking up. Still at the bottom of the stairs and he had gone to work. He must have stepped over me and just left as though nothing had happened. I knew the baby was gone before I even opened my eyes, I don’t even know what I felt first – sadness because it was my baby too or relief that I didn’t have to protect anyone from him. Because I know if we had a child, he would have hurt them, just as his dad did to him and his mom and it would just be this awful cycle that went on and on.” 

Finally, the tears fell, hating herself for feeling glad for whatever woman had been saved the torture of being the next cog in the Kendall wheel. “It’s okay to feel relieved.” He finally spoke, ignoring the way she flinched when his hand moved to her cheek to wipe away the tears, he knew she wasn’t flinching because she was scared of him but rather, because in that moment she felt undeserving of any sympathy he could offer her. “Did you go to the hospital?” 

Her head quickly shook, “No, we both worked there and I knew it was be obvious the moment I turned up. I was sure I had a few broken ribs, and my wrist must have been broken, the baby was gone and my head was bleeding… I could have died on that floor and he wouldn’t have cared. He came home after his shift and I had dinner on the table for him and he slapped me because I had missed a spot of blood on the staircase.” 

She shook her head and let out a bitter laugh, “I know it happened to me but it doesn’t feel real anymore. When I first got here I felt like I had never gotten up from that floor and now I can’t even imagine ever letting anyone treat me like that. I don’t feel like that person was me but the fact that it was, terrifies me.” 

“It terrifies me too.” Chimney was honest with her because the woman in front of him was one of the strongest he had ever met, she had literally fought for her life and he was still astounded every day that she chose him. “I don’t want you to be ashamed or scared to talk to me about it, about him. If something is getting to you, I want to know everything, even the things that are going to hurt to hear. You’re amazing.” 

Her lips crashed against his in a sudden, passionate kiss that said everything she wanted to right then. Her hands gripped at his short hair before settling on the back of his neck when she pulled back, “We are having a baby, our baby.” She eventually whispered, the trauma of the past momentarily forgotten when his hand rested on her stomach, “Yes, yes we are.” He agreed, before he pulled her towards him and let her rest his head against his chest with his arms wrapped tightly around her. He could sense how emotionally exhausted she was from the way her body deflated the moment she was safe in his arms. 

“I got you.” He whispered, “I’ve always got you, Maddie. Both of you.”


End file.
